Two Little Letters

N

O

They are currently a buzz word in our household. The wee one, in her effort to flex her maturity and independence, has been using it in excess. In some cases, yelling it at others; us, her teachers, her friends and even the poor old cat.

Some times her use is warranted. If the cat is clawing at something, or if one of her classmates is hitting, but let's face it, 80% of the time she is being a toddler.

If this and the nuclear meltdowns are the terrible twos, I think we will survive.

In order to be adaptive parents and work on working through the major developmental explosion that occurs at this age (part of the reason they are such little shits) we are committing ourselves to the state hospital.

Bad joke.

We are going to lead by example and we are committing ourselves to not using the word "no" unless absolutely necessary, and preferably in the form of "no, thank you." The first evening has been a challenge.

You really don't think about how often you utilize such a small and simple word to convey so much until you force yourself to stop. It reminds me of a paper I had to write in high school. I believe it was a narrative piece where we were not allowed the use of the word "I" or maybe it was an expressive piece with no "and," or maybe we did both in separate instances... I can't recall for certain, but I remember the immense difficulty trying to stumble through the writing process without one of the most basic words in the English language.

The worst part, I honestly don't believe she fully understands what the word means when she uses it sometimes. She'll say, "No, don't want to eat mac'n'cheese." Then promptly gobble it all down.... Makes me contemplate if she is just trying to be contrary to be contrary.

Heaven help us when the teen years get here. It'll be great or it will be the terrible twos all over again.

At work today I had a really scary moment; whilst pulling invoices from the system I became insanely dizzy. To the point even using a focal point was questionable. I sat there for about five minutes trying to deep breathe and it barely began to fade away. Considering how it left me feeling and how I still feel, I am confident it was tied to a sudden pressure change in my ears.

I was prone to ear infections as a child and have actually had a couple in the last several years as an adult. I am currently, like as I type this, feeling a not so lovely pressure in my right ear.

All in all it was unpleasant. Trying to message Collin was a challenge because even watching my fingers type was enough to make me want to pass out. Reading his responses was even more fun. Luckily, it abated and by the time the day was ending I was mostly okay. The only remnant other than the pressure in my ear is a bone weary sense of exhaustion, almost like one would have after fighting off a fever.

Since the little one decided she needed to go night night at a quarter to seven, I am inclined to follow her lead after an episode of Jessica Jones (Netflix) or Gate (Crunchyroll).

I just finished the series "Charlotte" on Crunchyroll; I must say a very interesting little anime. If you are into the idea of supernatural abilities that onset at puberty and disappear at the end of adolescence and scientist trying to exploit this and so on, you might want to peruse it. Crunchyroll is a free streaming service (with the option for subscription). Most shows are not dubbed, but that is the way to watch them in my opinion.

And now I realize I was letting my nerd flag fly pretty big there... Oh well. I am what I am.

Next time I will try to finally go over the nerdgasmic previews we saw when we went to Star Wars, and also my experience dealing with some serious heat.